


Discipline

by Angsthase (Angsthase_mtg)



Category: Brakenwood (Dungeons and Dragons campaign world by Chupika64)
Genre: Backstory
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-25
Updated: 2020-09-10
Packaged: 2021-03-06 22:07:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,260
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26096104
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Angsthase_mtg/pseuds/Angsthase
Summary: For clerics and other magic-users who serve Eulinda, discipline is an important element of their training.





	1. Chapter 1

it's not surprising that people misunderstand the discipline taught to magic-users in Eulinda's service. I didn't understand it, myself, when I entered the mesivta.

I don't remember my parents; I'm told that Father Gojko found me in a trash-strewn alley, shivering and too hopeless even to cry. He took me home, nurtured me as if I were his own, and he arranged for my education at Eulinda's Mercy, a bluecoat school, when I was ten.

Father Gojko was a strict guardian, but the instructors at Eulinda's Mercy were even more so. I was unusual in having been guided by Father Gojko's prescribed chores, daily rhythm of prayer and service, and firm hand of guidance; most of the students came to the school half-wild from life with little supervision. I can understand, now, how difficult it must have been for the governors to keep order with sixteen dormitories of twenty children in each. At the time, it felt as if we were punished severely for every minor infraction. Increased chores for small things, like having our uniforms untidy. Beatings for more important issues, like speaking Common rather than Celestial in class. Instructors could prescribe punishments, of course, but so could older children who were deputised to help keep order.

I first learned that Eulinda had blessed me with magic while mending what seemed like the entire school's worth of torn uniforms in penance for a small tear in my undershirt that I had hoped would go unnoticed. As Father Gojko had taught me, I bent my head in prayer as I stitched, asking Eulinda's guidance as I struggled to make fine and even stitches with a rough and bent needle and thread that seemed determined to split. It was winter, so the daylight had fled before I finished my task, and the fabric was swimming before my eyes in the torchlight . . . and then I could no longer find the tear I was meant to be sewing.

I set that piece aside, reached for the next, and had barely begun working on it before the area I was trying to patch seemed to fill itself with fabric no more worn than the rest of the garment.

I suppose I faltered in my prayer, or something, because Sister Soreana came over to see what had change. She demanded to know what I was doing, and I showed her. She watched me try to mend several pieces, watched them mend themselves in my hand, told me not to move, and walked away.

I am not sure I can make you understand how frightening it was, as a twelve year old child, when the High Governor of Eulinda's Mercy followed her back into the room and stood over me, asking what I thought I was doing.

"Please, sir," I said to him, "I'm just trying to mend the uniforms."

"Mending indeed," he snorted. "Show me."

My hands were shaking -- I suppose it's good that I didn't need to use my fingers for the stitches -- but I entrusted my soul to Eulinda and did my best.

"Are you aware, girl," the High Governor asked me, "That you are using magic?"

"No, sir," I said, though I remember my voice broke. "Am I not meant to be? I _was_ sewing, honestly, and then this just . . . started happening? I did not mean to cheat." Cheating was one of the most serious infractions; even if one were allowed to remain at the school, the cane with which cheaters were punished was said to draw blood more often than not. I had only seen a cheater punished once, in my first year at the school, but it was a strong deterrent.

"Would you so despise a sign of Eulinda's favour, then?" he asked, and his voice seemed dangerous.

"No, sir!" I said quickly. I didn't even want to imagine what they might do if a child were to openly reject the goddess.

"Are you willing to accept training for your gifts, then?" he asked, and my agreement was both swift and fervent.

***

I spent that night in a cubicle in the infirmary. In retrospect, I can understand how it was necessary, why sending an untrained magic user back to a barely-monitored dormitory of unruly children must have seemed too great a risk to take, but at the time I was put to bed in a clean nightgown that was not my own, in a bed with crisp white sheets and an empty and very silent room, not entirely sure what was to happen to me. I don't remember many details, but the echoing emptiness was almost overwhelming until I was able to lose myself in prayer.

I did not wake until the bell warning of the beginning of the first class, and was nearly in a panic throwing on clothing from the night before, knowing I would not have time to fetch my books without being tardy, and hoping that I could hide the fact that they were missing from the sharp-eyed instructor, at least for this one class. Not praying, of course, for even then I knew it would have been a slight to Eulinda to ask her to cover for my poor planning, for my disorder. In my sinful mortal soul, however, I hoped that the mortal instructors would just not-notice it, just this once.

I was the last one through the door, and Brother Zigor glared at me as I slipped into my seat just before the tardy bell rang. Still, I was in my place, and held my head high; as much as violating the rules brought punishment, compliance was a source of safety. I was a child; a certain pride in being held safe by the rule even when I had only just managed to comply can, I hope, be excused by my youth.

I'm not sure I had ever been more grateful, though, for class beginning with an examination paper for which we were required to have our books stowed under our seats. In the shuffling as the other children did so, I managed to beg use of a pen from my deskmate. Prayer or no, I felt that Eulinda was looking out for me. 

Nor was it particularly difficult for me; Father Gojko had taught me Celestial from an early age, so reading a passage and writing about it was less of a challenge than keeping my penwork up to Brother Zigor's standards of tidiness. I was actually feeling pretty good about my prospects for the morning until a shadow filled the door to the classroom and Brother Zigor looked up, his frown of annoyance at having his class disrupted fading into an O of surprise and deferential respect.

"Can I help you, High Governor?" Brother Zigor asked, and I glanced towards the door. My pen blotted on my paper, but for once the messiness of the paper seemed less threat to me than the fact that the High Governor's eyes stopped scanning the room as soon as he saw me.

"I was looking for Richenda Bode," the High Governor said.

"Well, we are in the middle of an examination," Brother Zigor began hesitantly, and I prayed the reprieve would hold. Eulinda had other plans for me, however.

"Then send her out, and we can cease to disturb your classroom," the High Governor said curtly, and Brother Zigor motioned for me to leave.

I returned the borrowed pen, straightened my slightly rumpled uniform as best I could, and walked out of the classroom under the curious eye of fifty-nine other pupils.

As the heavy door thumped shut behind me, the High Governor demanded to know what I thought I was doing, sitting in class.

"Studying Celestial, sir?" I asked, _feeling_ that this answer was wrong, but knowing that sullen silence would also be subject to correction. His reaction confirmed that my reply was not suitable. 

"Why weren't you preparing for your journey?" he asked, face slightly flushed.

"I'm sorry, sir," I said, "but what journey?"

His mouth worked, and he looked at the clerk beside him. 

"Apologies, lord," the thin man said with a slight bow. "When I went to the infirmary this morning to inform the girl that she would be travelling, she was already gone."

The High Governor harrumphed, and said, "Well, no help for it, I suppose. We've found her now."

They bustled me out to the courtyard, and into a carriage. The clerk handed me a parcel, and I was sent off, informed that I had already kept the coachman waiting long enough.

***

It is only by the grace of Eulinda, I think, that I managed to control my bladder during that first segment of the ride. I had not dared take time to relieve myself before class, and the jouncing of the carriage made it more of a challenge. I'm not sure whether it was one hour or three before the coachman stopped so that I could stretch my legs, but I was surely grateful when he did. More importantly, he told me what was going on.

Apparently, the High Governor had been working late the night before, sending to the mesivta to arrange my transfer. For all that the High Governor of Eulinda's Mercy didn't tell _me_ about it, the coachman had been informed that he simply needed to deposit me with the door warden at the Temple of Eulinda at Ceritol, and they would see me to the mesivta. The coachman thought I would be allowed to open the package I had been handed, since I hadn't been told otherwise. I was glad I took his advice, because it turned out to have been my lunch. It was only bread and cheese, but I had missed breakfast, and hunger added its own savour.

If it sounds like I was being treated more like a parcel myself than like a human being with agency, that's probably not entirely inaccurate. For the High Governor, I suppose, he was faced with a piece out of place; Eulinda's Mercy is a school for impoverished children, not a training ground for magic users. He acted swiftly and efficiently to move me to the proper place. While I might wish he had more embodied our lady's mercy and generosity, I came to learn later that magic users specifically are more carefully disciplined than those who cannot find themselves acting against the natural order of the world.


	2. Discipline

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I would like to tell you that I was not terrified, going into my first session with a Disciplinarian of Eulinda.
> 
> I can say now that it was wrong of me to fear her, but to say that I was not afraid would not be to stand in Eulinda's light. I've learned too much of discipline to make that choice lightly.

It had been late when I arrived at the Mesivta of Eulinda; I was given bread and stew in the kitchen, and assigned a sleeping cell. I fell into the cot still in my clothing, the school uniform from Eulinda's Mercy, and slept fitfully through the night. When I woke, it was to the sound of bells muffled by stone walls and the feeling of eyes on me; the acolyte who had shown me to my cell the night before was standing in the doorway, waiting for me to show signs of waking. She was older than I was, though not by more than a few years, and dressed in neat blue robes with a white rope belt.

"Where are your things?" she asked, scanning the cell and seeing only myself in my sleep-rumpled clothing. When I admitted that I didn't have any, she looked worried but said, "Well, no help for it, I suppose." I barely had time to wash my face in a basin at the end of the corridor between two rows of cells before she was urging me to walk with her.

We didn't have time for breakfast, she explained as we walked through the emptying refectory, because she had not realised she was meant to be my guide this morning. Her stride was long, and her manner suggested that we were already late for class. When I asked about that, she stopped and looked at me.

"You'll be tested for class placement this afternoon," she said, as if surprised I didn't realise. "I was told that you will begin your day in the Disciplinarium."

I don't think I whimpered aloud, but something must have showed in my face or my posture.

"Why are _you_ anxious?" she demanded impatiently. "I'm the one who has failed in her duty of hospitality and made you miss breakfast and now we'll probably be late anyway."

"I'm sorry," I said. "Will you be punished on my account?"

"No, of course not," she said, starting off again. She led me outside and we cut across the main courtyard. "Punishment is for children and animals." Opening a small door on the north side of the courtyard, she led me into a small but immaculately maintained garden, past a reflecting pool and towards a stone building that I presumed to be the Disciplinarium. "I will be offered discipline appropriate to the error, to help me do better in the future."

I didn't deliberately slow my pace as we approached the building, but the next thing I knew she was several steps ahead of me and looking back to see where I was.

"Delaying or avoiding discipline does not honour Eulinda," she chided, but something in her tone made me think she was reminding herself as much as she was me. I nodded, and followed her into the cool stone building.

Mother Snotra was a wizened old dwarf. Her face was wrinkled behind a snowy white beard, but her eyes were sharp and piercing. She greeted me at the door to the Disciplinarium and guided me to a sitting area. The chair was comfortable, and she offered tea and cakes.


End file.
